State senators on the Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee lashed out at PG&E executives over the company’s missteps during multiple rounds of power shut-offs last month, which hit millions of people as the utility sought to prevent damaged equipment from throwing sparks and starting fires.

“We thought that PG&E would use a scalpel in implementing these planned blackouts,” said state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco. “Instead PG&E has chosen to use a sledgehammer and then turn around and essentially tell the public, ‘Sorry, suck it up, we’ll fix it in 10 years.’”

PG&E CEO Bill Johnson said in October that the outages would persist for another decade as the utility rebuilt its infrastructure to better resist fire-prone weather.

Johnson told lawmakers Monday that the company has worked to correct problems with its communications about the outages — fixing its website that repeatedly crashed, expanding call centers and fixing incorrect maps.

But, he said, the larger lesson is that shut-offs cannot be a permanent tool. He said PG&E expects to reduce the scope of any potential shut-offs next fall by as much as a third as it improves its grid.

“Repeatedly turning off power for millions of people, in one of the most advanced economies in the world, even in the interest of safety, is not a sustainable solution to the wildfire threats that we face,” Johnson said.

“So I want to assure you of this: We do not expect an annual repeat of what we went through this October,” he said.

Lawmakers came armed with stories of people harmed when their home or business lost power. They said the utility had acted brazenly, with little planning to mitigate the impacts of shut-offs on medically vulnerable people or businesses that were forced to shut their doors.

People across California lost power last month as several utility companies cut power during fire-prone weather, fueled by gusty winds and unusually hot and dry conditions.

Senators focused their criticism Monday almost entirely on PG&E. While utilities in Southern California also cut power as winds threatened their lines, PG&E’s shut-offs hit customers across a vast geographic area and affected about 2.8 million people at their peak.

State Sen. Bill Dodd, D-Napa, said PG&E’s planned shut-offs reflect its “decades of disregard to its mandate to serve its customers reliably and safely.” He said blackouts that should have been rare and targeted were “applied broadly with little or no strategic planning.”

“I looked at what happened on Oct. 9 as a big ‘screw you’ to your customers, to the Legislature, to the governor,” Dodd told Johnson.

PG&E executives have repeatedly said the decision to turn off power is driven by public safety, not an effort to stave off the steep liability costs it faces if its equipment starts a fire.

Lawmakers raised additional concerns about possible outages this week, saying near-freezing temperatures in some parts of the state could threaten lives. They questioned what PG&E is doing to provide shelters for those who lose heat.

Laurie Giammona, PG&E’s chief customer officer, said the utility is talking with counties about the need for 24-hour shelters. Resource centers PG&E opened in previous shut-offs closed at 8 p.m.

Assemblyman Marc Levine, D-San Rafael, responded to PG&E’s latest warning that it may shut off power to hundreds of thousands of people this week by announcing details of legislation he plans to introduce in January.

Levine’s office said in a statement that his bill will allow the California Public Utilities Commission to temporarily appoint a public administrator to oversee safety-related operations at PG&E, including decisions to intentionally turn off power lines because of wildfire risk. The commission would also create a “public safety stress test” to evaluate utilities’ financial well-being, safety record and the reliability of their equipment, and the administrator would be able to work with company leaders to “make decisions necessary to restore critical infrastructure, ensure that proper safety protocols are followed and increase public confidence in the utility,” Levine’s office said.

The administrator would be able to modify the scope of a blackout “after appropriate due diligence,” according to Levine’s office. They would serve for a maximum of 180 days, unless the commission decided it needed to extend the term.

The commission could appoint an administrator to other investor-owned utilities as well under Levine’s proposal.

Levine said in the statement that the state “cannot afford to wait for PG&E to do the right thing” and said his legislative plan “will help all utilities refocus their priorities on safety and increase needed public confidence in essential electrical utility services.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated Assemblyman Marc Levine’s title.

Dustin Gardiner is a state Capitol reporter for The San Francisco Chronicle. He joined The Chronicle in 2019, after nearly a decade with The Arizona Republic, where he covered state and city politics. Dustin won several awards for his reporting in Arizona, including the 2019 John Kolbe Politics Reporting award, and the 2017 Story of the Year award from the Arizona Newspapers Association. Outside of work, he enjoys hiking, camping, reading fiction and playing Settlers of Catan. He's a member of NLGJA, the association of LGBTQ journalists.